Troops fire on Yemeni crowd

Sunday

Sep 25, 2011 at 12:01 AMSep 25, 2011 at 1:00 AM

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — In one of the bloodiest days of Yemen’s uprising, government troops backed by snipers and shelling attacked a square full of Yemeni protesters yesterday and battled with pro-opposition forces in the capital, killing at least 40 people and littering the streets with bodies.

The violence signaled an accelerated attempt by President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his loyalists to crush their rivals and tighten his grip on the country after his return a day earlier from Saudi Arabia, where he has been undergoing treatment for the past three months for wounds suffered in an assassination attempt.

One of Saleh’s top rivals — Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar — called for international help, asking the United States and other regional powers to rein in Saleh. He warned that Saleh is pushing the country into civil war and compared him to the Roman emperor Nero, who burned down his own city.

In a strongly worded statement, al-Ahmar called Saleh a “sick, vengeful soul” who treats Yemen like his personal estate.

“With his return, Yemen is experiencing sweeping chaos and the harbingers of a crushing civil war, which this ignorant man is determined to ignite,” said al-Ahmar, who was once a close ally of Saleh but early in the uprising joined the opposition along with the 1st Armored Division he commands.

Sanaa has become a city divided between rival gunmen, with barracks and roadblocks manned by men in different uniforms indicating their loyalties. The city’s streets have become too dangerous for residents to venture out. Many took cover in basements because of the ongoing thuds of mortars during fighting that has killed at least 140 people last week.

Regime forces pounded the protest camp yesterday in Sanaa’s Change Square where thousands were massed, as they have been nearly daily since February in peaceful protests demanding the end of Saleh’s 33-year rule. Mortar shells blasted in the square, setting tents on fire, and snipers on nearby rooftops fired down methodically on protesters dashing for cover.

“I was terrified when I saw one protester who left the tent running toward us as he heard the mortars, only to be shot in the chest by a sniper and fall to the ground before my eyes,” said Samir al-Mukhlafi, a protest leader.